SACRAMENTO, Calif. — NBA coaches even sleep in the spotlight. It’s a high-profile, high-risk occupation. Cleveland coach Mike Brown, for example, demands the respect of LeBron and Shaq and walks the sideline with catwalk swagger.

His mentor remains in the shadows. Denver’s Tim Grgurich is a Nuggets assistant coach, an NBA lifer, who watches games against a railing 20 feet from his team’s bench, aloof in body, not in mind.

To know the impact the fascinating Grgurich has on players and proteges, just ask Brown. “He’s probably, single-handedly, the most important guy who helped me get to the seat I’m in now,” Brown said.

Brown won the NBA’s honor for Eastern Conference coach of the month after going 14-3 in December, with seven road wins, including Christmas Day at the Lakers. Yeah, he probably has won a few games by making sure James catches the team bus. But Brown’s recent playoff runs have established him as a top-flight coach, not bad for the former Nuggets video coordinator and wide- eyed counselor at Grgurich’s famed summer camps in Las Vegas.

“With him taking me under his wing and giving me credibility alone, that’s helped me move up and be bigger than I was in a lot of people’s eyes,” Brown said. “He took a chance on me. He taught me a lot in terms of wisdom, how to interact with players, how to teach players and how to be yourself, and that’s the most important thing. And I did listen some, because that’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

Grgurich is the NBA’s Yoda, a wise and unassuming mentor. Once, I asked Chris Andersen if Grgurich was like the “Star Wars” character, and The Birdman said, “Yeah, but without the greenness.”

In the early 1990s, Grgurich met Brown and invited the coach-in-training to work his post players camps, which are famously like speakeasies. While most things in basketball are lively and loud, this camp is in a private location in Vegas, and it’s not open to the media. But it attracts up-and-coming talent, such as the Cavaliers’ J.J. Hickson, who once caught the eye of the Nuggets and is now blossoming under Brown.

“I was probably 23, 24 years old, and I thought I was just going to be a defensive guy in drills,” Brown said. “Then he said, ‘All right, Coach, you’ve got the next drill.’ For me, that was equivalent to when people say they learned how to swim when their dad threw them in the swimming pool and said, ‘Swim.’ If you didn’t swim, you were going to drown. It was the same thing with Grg. He said, ‘You got it, Coach,’ and stepped back. It seemed like I stood there for five minutes in shock, not knowing what to say. I probably stuttered and said the same thing six, seven times. But the next time he threw me out there, I was a little bit better.” Kudos indeed.

With their win against Utah last Monday, the New Orleans Hornets climbed back to .500 for the first time since being 1-1 (before coach Byron Scott was fired). The Hornets are at least making it interesting, despite the anchoring contracts of Peja Stojakovic and Morris Peterson, and rookies Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton each playing about 17 minutes a game. General manager Jeff Bower, who took over for Scott, deserves credit for bringing in Tim Floyd, who is one of the best with the dry-erase board in basketball.

Brand name.

Philadelphia’s Elton Brand makes nearly $15 million and is one of those what-if guys (injuries plagued him the past two seasons), but he has enhanced the 76ers with his sixth-man role. Just ask the Nuggets, which lost last week to Philadelphia, a night when the reserve Brand scored 16 points (on 7-for-11 shooting) with three blocks too.

“If Elton Brand continues to play this well and they stay healthy, they’ll be an over-.500 team,” Nuggets coach George Karl said.

And in the East, heck, that might get them home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Who’s hot?

The Raptors — yes, the dysfunctional Raptors — are the hottest team in the NBA, winners of eight of nine. Andrea Bargnani is averaging 17 points this season — 18 in his past 10, including 28 vs. Charlotte.

“They’re trying to develop him into having more possessions around the basket,” Karl said, “but magnifying your strengths is the key to developing a good team, and his strengths are making 3s, playing out front, reading pick and rolls.”

Spotlight on …

Deron Williams, Utah guard

It’s fun when things like this happen: It took Jazz guard Williams 342 games to tally 3,000 assists; it took former Jazz guard John Stockton 341. Stockton, of course, is the NBA’s all-time assist leader (15,806), and it’s important to point out that he wasn’t a full-time starter until his fourth NBA season. But that near-symmetry is eerie.

Nuggets coach George Karl, who adores point-guard play, said defending the division-rival Williams is tricky. “It’s not how you stop him — because I don’t think you stop guys like that — it’s that you stop his efficiency and effectiveness. I don’t think there’s any question, when he’s on, their team is on. This philosophy is how do you control him — zone him, trap him, switch him, disrupt him? There are 4-5 different philosophies, and you use 2-3 in a game.”

The fifth-year guard has yet to make an all-star team despite his career average of 8.8 assists. This season, Williams could be affected by the Tracy McGrady wrench (he’s the No. 2 vote-getting guard), but if the league determines to bench T-Mac (on leave while waiting to be traded), then Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Brandon Roy and Williams could all, theoretically, make the all-star team for the West.

Benjamin Hochman was a sports columnist for The Denver Post until August 2015 before leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his hometown newspaper. Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Hochman wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

Four assistant basketball coaches at Division I schools and a top Adidas executive were among 10 people charged Tuesday with crimes including bribery and fraud as part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into corruption in college basketball.

CenturyLink, the telecommunications company that ended its sponsorship agreement with Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall because of his protests during the national anthem last year, said it will not terminate its agreement with current client Emmanuel Sanders.